ST Online Forum: Booklet on gays: SMU should support students' mature actions, not restrict them (Nov 8)

Nov 8, 2007
Booklet on gays: SMU should support students' mature actions, not restrict them

WE REFER to the letter, 'Allowing SMU students to launch booklet, event on gays sends wrong message' (Nov 3), by Ms Low Xiang Jun as well as various other letters responding to this matter. Ms Low raised an important and valid point about the role of tertiary educational institutions in Singapore. SMU's mission is to develop socially responsible leaders and innovators who will help shape the future of Asia.

Fundamental to this mission is our commitment to provide students, faculty and staff an intellectual forum for open discourse and dialogue, even on controversial matters. The highest aim of education is not to teach students what to think, but to teach them how to think - critically, rationally and creatively. We encourage students to express their views, but equally important, to recognise and respect the views of others, which may differ widely from their own.

In this instance, a group of undergraduates has developed a project aimed at giving a voice to an under-represented group by sharing their stories. Their purpose is to educate and promote understanding - not to advocate a particular lifestyle, but rather to provide insight that will enable their fellow students to develop a more informed perspective. This is not inconsistent with the objectives of the 'Leadership & Team Building' course.

Ms Low may wish to note that the group has stated very clearly in the publication that the members are 'not representative of gay activism' and many of them 'come from backgrounds that neither condone nor promote homosexuality'.

The intent of their publication is neither contentious nor divisive. The group has stated that they are only presenting voices which are 'real and come from real people'. Readers are given the latitude to form their own views and opinions.

The university should support such mature and sensitive actions on the part of its students, not restrict them. Our role is to respect and protect open dialogue and learning, permitted that the means employed to create awareness do not infringe university regulations or the laws of Singapore.

Professor Howard Hunter
President
Singapore Management University

ST Online Forum: SMU students' launch of booklet on gays: We need to be more open minded (Nov 6)

Nov 6, 2007
SMU students' launch of booklet on gays: We need to be more open-minded

I AM writing in reply to Miss Low Xiang Jun's article, 'Allowing SMU students to launch booklet, event on gays sends wrong message' (Online forum, Nov 3).

Miss Low wrote to disapprove the launching of a booklet, done as a project by SMU first-year students, that discussed the discrimination faced by homosexual youths in Singapore. She said that the book launch condones an alternative lifestyle and will create a negative impression on the values of SMU students.

I am a conservative but I must disagree with her words.

I strongly believe that a university should be an environment within which any perspective and idea can be discussed. In that setting, our learned faculty will provide necessary guidance. For university students, this is the time to learn about the world and be exposed to new ideas and thoughts. We should understand that there are individuals within our society that pursue an alternative lifestyle.

The project was a booklet that sought to discuss the issue of homosexual prejudice as well as to facilitate understanding. It was not a parade that cajoled students into turning gay.

Being in a conservative society does not mean that we should isolate ourselves from what some may believe to be negative influences. While we must hold fast to our values, we do not gain from being insulated.

The liberality in United States colleges is not something granted to its students. It is a culture of tolerance born from a society that has grown and learned from a history of prejudice and racial segregation. I believe that this culture is a mark of strong values and ethics and is not an unwholesome symptom of a decayed moral compass. We are entitled to our views as conservatives but as members of a plural society, we must seek to understand others who may hold differing beliefs on sexuality, religion, politics, philosophy and so on. Let us come together and agree to disagree.

Seeking to understand the people we may disagree with draws the fine line between tolerance and ignorance. I believe that SMU students, being socially responsible citizens and future leaders, understand that tolerance is a necessary ingredient for harmony and peace. I also believe that we will continue to uphold this value with pride.

Ahmad Firdaus Daud
President
SMU Students' Association
Singapore Management University

ST Online Forum: Dictating to university students what views they should take insults their intelligence (Nov 6)

Nov 6, 2007
Dictating to university students what views they should take insults their intelligence

MISS Low Xiang Jun, in her online letter, had condemned SMU's decision to allow their students to publish a booklet and hold an event on gays.

I take particular exception to her view on how SMU should treat its students. She appears to imply that universities should impart 'right values' and 'wholesome ideals' and suppress those to the contrary, and that being 'socially responsible' implies conforming with the views of the majority of society.

Universities are institutions that should first and foremost emphasise intellectual and moral integrity. To dictate to university students what views they should take and what values they should hold not only undermines the process of intellectual and moral discovery, but also insults the maturity and the intelligence of the top 25 per
cent of our school cohort.

I have no doubt that the SMU students in this case are acting on their intellectual and moral conscience, which is the responsibility of citizens in a democracy. Singapore is a democracy and students, like all citizens, have the right to express their views, regardless of what the opinion of the majority may be. Going by her flawed argument, the unpopular but necessary policies of the Government such as CPF reform would be 'socially irresponsible'.

Indeed, instead of dismissing divergent viewpoints from our own, we should critically consider their merits and demerits and seek to question our own assumptions, and through that process form more enlightened and considered conclusions. And the ability to do so is exactly what a university education should impart.

Matthias Yong Peng Chew
Cambridge, UK

ST: SMU students launch booklet, event on gays (Oct 31)

Oct 31, 2007
SMU students launch booklet, event on gays
By Yeo Ghim Lay

TASKED with creating a community service project for a course, undergraduate Leonard Ng and his project group mates decided to do something different.

While their classmates organised visits to homes for the needy, the eight Singapore Management University students came up with a 50-page booklet containing the stories of young gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Calling themselves JAM - Justifying A Mission - they will introduce the booklet, Un-Mute, at an exhibition tomorrow.

The two-day event at SMU that they have organised will have posters advocating non-discrimination towards the gay community.

Explaining their decision, Mr Ng, 21, told The Straits Times yesterday: 'We also hope this will encourage more gays and lesbians to come out.'

None of the eight students on the project is gay or lesbian, he added.

The project is for their leadership and teambuilding course, a core module for all first-year students.

The group plans to distribute 500 copies of the booklet, for free, at the exhibition.

Mr Ng, a social sciences student, said Un-Mute is not related to the recent parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code, which makes sex between men a crime. The Government has said it
will retain the law, but not actively enforce it.

The booklet took two months to complete and cost about $1,500, which came from a straight Singaporean man who wants to stay anonymous, Mr Ng added.

A copy of it was sent to the media yesterday.

In it, the eight described themselves as 'a group of idealistic students' whose mission is to 'give voice to the unheard, to give GLBs (gays, lesbians and bisexuals) in Singapore a chance to speak out and let their stories be told, to clear any misunderstandings about them'.

Seven individuals, most of whom did not use their real names, are featured. One who called himself Fairus wrote: 'I spent quiet nights crying to myself and going to sleep wishing I would wake up straight.'

Also among them is Mr Nicholas Deroose, 22, who is in the team behind QueerCast, a gay podcast.

Mr Ng said JAM plans to conduct a survey later of those who received the booklet. 'We want to see if their perceptions have changed after reading the stories.'

Miss Michelle Sng, 20, a second-year SMU business management student, said the students are 'brave' for embarking on a potentially controversial project.

However, she feels that 'for those who are homophobic, it probably wouldn't change their minds'.